Rocky Beginnings
by knee-knee
Summary: Skimmons S3 AU. Simmons returns from the other side, but her ordeal there is just the beginning. Simmons is inhuman, Daisy is feuding with Fitz and the fish oil capsules are making a mess.
1. Prologue

A/N: This is the start of a season 3 AU. Consider it my ideal arc for Simmons.

She's been running for months. At least it feels like months, she has no way of knowing. Days here don't pass like those on Earth. The sky is dark and unchanging, reinforcing the niggling thought that this is all a twisted afterlife. If she is dead though, then why does she bother running?

Her legs pump furiously, muscles burning with the exertion of sprinting on a planet with higher gravity. Her foot slips and she hits the floor. Hard. Pain surges from the point of impact, sending signals to her already overloaded brain. Simmons chokes on a gasp, forcing herself to her feet again, one hand rubbing the bruise that is already forming on her elbow. She risks a glance over her shoulder and then she's off.

Simmons is at her cave entrance when she hears it. A booming cackle, elongated and eerie as it bounces off the valleys and craters she has just scrambled through. Her blood runs cold. She waits, praying to a god she doesn't believe in that her pursuer has given up.

It's an hour before she moves again, standing on aching legs and slipping sideways through a crevice in the rocks.

Inside is dry and warm, starlight leaking in from a small hole in the domed ceiling. It's almost like a skylight. Simmons settles against a wall, sliding down until her rump his the ground. She stretches her legs out and slips her makeshift bag off. There's plants tucked inside. Those that she had been collecting when she heard the hunter. She had wanted to look for a new water source too but there hadn't been time. Her rainwater well – merely a reservoir hewn into the cave floor below the skylight – had run dry two days ago. Simmons ignores the pounding in her head and begins to chew on the plant roots, her dry tongue soothed by the small amount of moisture in them.

Simmons sighs, her eyes roaming the foreign stars. Her right hand swirls in the dirt of the cave floor. She ignores the grit under her fingernails, absentmindedly tracing a single name into the dirt.

 _Skye._


	2. Cracked

**Chapter One**

The rock stands like a headstone. It's base is littered with tech and wiring, reminiscent of tributes left by the living. Daisy feels sick.

She is painfully aware of the day she lost hope in ever seeing Simmons alive again. It came later than it had for the others, though still sooner than Fitz. It was the day that Coulson had sat the team down and explained that he was making the trip to Sheffield to notify Simmons' family of her disappearance. Daisy had volunteered to accompany him. Two days later they had arrived at a neat little house with colourful flowerbeds and cheeky garden gnomes, then they had destroyed that happy home.

Simmons' mother hadn't flinched at first. Daisy had seen the unrelenting disbelief in her eyes, but then she had glanced at a photograph of her daughter on the mantelpiece and dissolved into noisy tears. When they left, Mrs Simmons had hugged Daisy and said, quite matter-of-factly, that they hoped to see her at the memorial. It was then that it had struck Daisy just how bleak the situation was. She had cried the whole way back to the airport.

Now, her efforts to crack the rock are driven by a much more sombre need to retrieve Simmons' body so that her family can have a proper burial. They – and the team too – deserve that closure, she thinks as she sinks into a chair opposite the rock. As usual, she closes her eyes and listens intently to the humming the rock is emitting. She has spent months trying to understand it but so far, nothing. The humming drowns out the world for a moment and she thinks back to the CCTV footage of Simmons' last moments.

Fitz hadn't locked the container properly, Simmons had gone to shut it, then the rock had liquefied...

Daisy had realised why almost immediately. Simmons was inhuman, just like her. Months later and that thought still has Daisy reeling. There is a sense of loss that Daisy can't quite put into words. It gnaws at the raw edges of her heart and she finds it difficult to breathe.

She blinks back tears and stands up to leave. It is then that Fitz hurries in, carrying reels of cable and a stack of printouts.

Daisy moves to step past him, refusing to look him in the eye, when he speaks.

'You shouldn't have given up. You owe her that much.'

'I haven't given up, Fitz.'

'You have. But I won't because friends don't give up on each other.'

'Friends? You ignored her for months and made her feel like shit all because she didn't want to date you! You were an asshole to her before she died. I hope that eats you alive.'

Daisy turns away from Fitz, who looks like she's just punched him in the face, and hurries out of the door. She feels a twinge of guilt but then she thinks of Simmons' smile, and the fact she won't see it again burns the guilt right out of her.

Everything changes a week later when Lady Sif stops by the base at Coulson's behest.

'Son of Coul! We meet again.' says Sif as she strides into the common area in full Asgardian armour.

'It's good to see you, thanks for swinging by,' Coulson replies, giving Sif a firm handshake.

'Yes, well I heard about your agent. I thought that perhaps I might be of assistance. Well, and I had hoped that Agent Skye would allow me to see her new powers in action.'

She turned to smile at Daisy who was standing at Coulson's shoulder.

'I go by Daisy now actually but sure, guess you want to keep tabs on me huh?'

'Daisy, my apologies. Thor did ask me to check that all was well. It seems more and more inhumans are cropping up all over Midgard. Perhaps after I examine the monolith..?'

Daisy nods and Sif smiles warmly.

'Right,' says Coulson as he moves away. 'Shall we?'

He leads Sif and Daisy to the rock and greets Fitz who is sitting with his tablet, staring at it intently.

'Oh my...' says Sif stepping closer, eyes raking over the rock as she examines it.

'Yeah,' Daisy says with a sigh. 'Simmons got sucked in. We know it's hopeless but we... we just want to...' Her eyes prickle and she presses her lips together tightly.

'She thinks she's dead,' says Fitz without looking up.

'This is no ordinary rock,' interrupts Sif before Daisy can form a retort. 'When the Kree had finished with their experimenting – no offence – they began wiping the inhumans from existence. To some extent they succeed, though the DNA now lies dormant in those descendants within the population. They didn't just hunt them, they set traps. This, if I'm not mistaken, is one such trap.'

'So she is stuck in there..?'

'Wait, that would only work with inhumans. Simmons isn't inhuman,' says Fitz with a frown.

'She is. She must be if the rock reacted to her,' replies Daisy, meeting Fitz eye for the first time in a week. He looks suitably shocked and turns to look at the rock.

'I don't think you quite grasp what I am saying. This trap, it is a portal designed to pull inhumans to a single place so they can be picked off with ease.'

'A portal?' Daisy all but explodes and her heart begins hammering in her chest.

'Yes.'

'So, there's a chance she's alive?'

'Possibly. If she is hardy.'

There is silence for a long moment. Fitz is still gazing at the rock with something akin to disbelief on his face. Coulson is running a hand over his, trying to stifle the emotion that's threatening to spill over.

Daisy steps toward Sif, determination setting her features.

'How do we open it?'

Once the news that they can bring Simmons home spreads throughout the base, the team quickly spring into action, implementing the plan that Sif had outlined that morning.

Fitz is monitoring the rock, looking for fluctuations in its composition. Hunter and Mack are on hand to neutralise any hostiles that made the trip back with Simmons. Mack in particular looks nervous, his forehead is beading with sweat and his fingers are turning white on the grip of his shotgun. Daisy understands his apprehension.

'This is going to be dangerous Daisy,' says Bobbi, standing on hand with a medkit. 'You don't have to do this. It could kill you.'

'I know,' replies Daisy with a small smile. 'I have to try, it's Simmons.'

Bobbi nods, pats Daisy's arm and then moves to stand beside Hunter. She still has a slight limp.

'Ready?' Coulson stands with his good hand on the latch of the rock's container.

They all nod.

He throws the door open wide and Daisy steps forward.

Immediately, the rock liquefies and Daisy feels a tugging in her chest. She stands her ground, raising her hands up to ward off the advancing sludge and feeling for the vibration Sif had mentioned. Sure enough, in this liquid state, the humming is louder.

Daisy concentrates, biting back the gasp that tries to bubble past her lips as her head explodes with shards of pain. Someone calls her name, but she ignores them. The humming is deafening now, it's almost too much for her to handle. Then, she hears a new sound.

It's not so much of a humming, more of a steady beat, lying beneath. Almost like a heartbeat.

Daisy focuses on it, almost blind with the pain in her head, and then... it stops.

Her ears are ringing and she's barely aware of the arms wrapped around her as her knees hit the floor. Her vision swims back into focus and she sees what the others are staring at, mouths agape.

Slumped on the floor, looking filthy and wild, is Simmons.


End file.
